A day out with grand-nieces and nephews is usually one of a familiar pattern – soft serve ice cream, thinly cut deep fried potato, and an occasional trip to the park.
Of those day-out components, ice cream is the most harrowing. We choose soft serve because it is the most readily available. Fast food chains weren’t thinking of grandpop when they found a way to blend multiple types of gum with milk, sugar, cream and syrup.
Genius if you’re a food scientist. Disastrous if you’re the end user.
Neither were the staff thinking too deeply when hatching a plan to deliver six cones to an old man with five elves in toe.
Time is of the essence here, my pimply-faced friends behind the counter. Each second we waste incurs an extra few inches of drop down an already sticky arm.
Yet, they line the cones on a bench where they begin – within moments – to melt down the side of the cone.
Wrapping one of those one-ply serviettes around the bottom of the cone only creates other problems down the track, towards the end of the eating process when a child determines that it’s easier to eat the serviette than it is to peel it from the side of a now-melded wafer.
When I remember, I take wet wipes with me because dry serviettes just won’t cut it.
Before handing the ice creams to each of my compatriots, I’ll roll up their sleeves – an often feeble attempt to mitigate damage as milky stickiness rolls its way towards elbows, down cheeks and on to the front of sweatshirts.
I’ve even seen it defy gravity, a blob of sugary mess up a child’s nostril, or stuck in their eyebrows. How this happens, I’m not sure.
But it does, and this requires the power of wet towels and whatever chemical is in them to extract the evidence from wherever it’s managed to land.
Meanwhile, I’m in the bathroom, squirting citrus soap into the wrinkles on my hand, trying to restore them to their previously soft, albeit flabby, state.
Compared to that, the chips are a breeze, although I have seen two of my nephews dipping the fries into the ice cream which heightens the risk of spread as it drips to all parts of the playground, including the slider where whoever’s next in line slips new pants through through the pre-dropped white goo.
That’s when I look at my watch to note I’m only 37 minutes into a three-hour promise to keep the children occupied while mothers gained respite over a gin and tonic and a freshly-baked scone.
So we venture to the local park where I note things have changed a little. Gone are the roundabouts which – when we were children – spun at a speed which matched g-forces of a jet fighter and flung the weak at speed into onlookers or nearby brick walls.
Gone are the sheet-iron edges which joined the slippery dip at half way, claiming fingers from those not daring enough to put their hands above their head as they slid into a muddy hole at the bottom where sand was supposed to sit.
Perhaps not gone, but hidden are the chains that meet the seat of swings where – for those who hadn’t lost a finger on the slipper slide – children could reshape knuckles at right angles with a mis-timed push.
Instead, the entire playground is covered in cotton candy. Smooth plastic slides, padded ropes to hold on the swings, and – well – there was never going to be a way to save the roundabout.
And to top things off, the floor which had replaced the grass was made of mush which your shoes sink into every step.
When we were children, we had an octopus which was about a metre high. We climbed it and tried to push each other off. This mushy floor stuff would have been very handy the day I landed on the left side of my head.
They must be saving a fortune on casts at the emergency wards.
Ring. Ring. Hey Wanda, I know I’ve only been gone 90 minutes, but do you think there’s any chance I might be able to come home a little early?
